The New Hotness

The Tektronix Circuit Computer needs text along radial lines:

Tek CC - original RC arrow layout — Tek CC – original RC arrow layout

Fortunately, this doesn’t require nearly as much effort as the text-on-arcs code, because GCMC includes functions to rotate paths around the origin:

return rotate_xy(TextPath,Angle) + CenterPt;

The only trick is figuring out how to handle the justification, given the overall path length:

  local pl = TextPath[-1].x;

  local ji = (Justify == TEXT_LEFT)     ? 0mm :
             (Justify == TEXT_CENTERED) ? -pl/2 :
             (Justify == TEXT_RIGHT)    ? -pl :
             0mm;

A testcase showed it worked:

With that in hand, I took the liberty of slightly simplifying the original Tek layout:

Tek CC - radial text example — Tek CC – radial text example

If lives depended on it, one could duplicate the Tek layout, but they don’t and I didn’t. Fancy typography isn’t a GCMC thing.

And, yeah, laser printing is way crisper than a pen drawing.

The GCMC source code as a GitHub Gist:

	comment("RadialText test");
	ctr = [0mm,0mm];
	r = 20mm;

	a = 0deg;
	tp = scale(typeset("Left Inward",TextFont),LegendTextSize);
	tpr = RadialText(tp,ctr,r,a,TEXT_LEFT,INWARD);
	feedrate(TextSpeed);
	engrave(tpr,TravelZ,EngraveZ);
	tp = scale(typeset("Left Outward",TextFont),LegendTextSize);
	tpr = RadialText(tp,ctr,r,a,TEXT_LEFT,OUTWARD);
	feedrate(TextSpeed);
	engrave(tpr,TravelZ,EngraveZ);

	a = 90deg;
	tp = scale(typeset("Right Inward",TextFont),LegendTextSize);
	tpr = RadialText(tp,ctr,r,a,TEXT_RIGHT,INWARD);
	feedrate(TextSpeed);
	engrave(tpr,TravelZ,EngraveZ);
	tp = scale(typeset("Right Outward",TextFont),LegendTextSize);
	tpr = RadialText(tp,ctr,r,a,TEXT_RIGHT,OUTWARD);
	feedrate(TextSpeed);
	engrave(tpr,TravelZ,EngraveZ);


	a = 180deg;
	tp = scale(typeset("Center Inward",TextFont),LegendTextSize);
	tpr = RadialText(tp,ctr,r,a,TEXT_CENTERED,INWARD);
	feedrate(TextSpeed);
	engrave(tpr,TravelZ,EngraveZ);
	tp = scale(typeset("Center Outward",TextFont),LegendTextSize);
	tpr = RadialText(tp,ctr,r,a,TEXT_CENTERED,OUTWARD);
	feedrate(TextSpeed);
	engrave(tpr,TravelZ,EngraveZ);

	a = 270deg;
	RadialLegend("Offset to radius",ctr,r,a,TEXT_CENTERED,INWARD,-0.5);
	goto(ctr);
	move([0,-2*r,EngraveZ]);

	goto([r,0mm,-]);
	circle_cw(ctr);

view raw Radial Text – test code.gcmc hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	//—–
	// Write text on a radial line

	function RadialText(TextPath,CenterPt,Radius,Angle,Justify,Orient) {

	local pl = TextPath[-1].x; // path length

	local ji = (Justify == TEXT_LEFT) ? 0mm : // justification indent
	(Justify == TEXT_CENTERED) ? -pl/2 :
	(Justify == TEXT_RIGHT) ? -pl :
	0mm;

	if (Orient == INWARD) {
	TextPath = rotate_xy(TextPath,180deg);
	ji = -ji;
	}

	TextPath += [Radius + ji,0mm];

	return rotate_xy(TextPath,Angle) + CenterPt;

	}

	//—–
	// Draw a radial legend
	// Offset in units of char height: 0 = baseline on radius, +/- = above/below

	function RadialLegend(Text,Center,Radius,Angle,Justify,Orient,Offset) {

	local tp = scale(typeset(Text,TextFont),LegendTextSize) + [0mm,Offset * LegendTextSize.y];
	local tpr = RadialText(tp,Center,Radius,Angle,Justify,Orient);

	feedrate(TextSpeed);
	engrave(tpr,TravelZ,EngraveZ);

	}

view raw Radial Text.gcmc hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The New Hotness

GCMC Radial Text